It's one of the most momentous, eagerly anticipated, and politically significant prison liberations ever, right up there with Nelson Mandela, Terry Waite, and Tommy Ten Names.

And today, it finally happened: Lucy Connolly, the social media shitposting, totemic political titan of our times, has been released.

And how was this great heroine and persecuted people's champion welcomed as she finally strode free from her cruel and unjust incarceration?

Were crowds lining the streets waving banners and cheering?

Were the paparazzi falling over each other to get that first prized picture of Legendary Lucy walking free?

Were reporters jostling each other out of the way to deliver sensationalist live reports from outside the prison as this modern-day martyr, this persecuted paragon, finally tastes freedom once more?

Er, not exactly.

The only press coverage we have is of a taxi leaving a deserted HMP Peterborough which, we are told, "is believed to contain Lucy Connolly" (you can't actually see her though, obviously).

No crowds. No cheers. No breathless live reports.

Not even her own husband there to greet her. I mean, call me old fashioned, but if I'd been in prison for a year, I'd kind of expect my beloved to pick me up, not just, "why don't you get a taxi love, I'll see you at home".

The journey back to Northampton from Peterborough is over an hour. What is Lucy supposed to do with this precious first hour of freedom - make small talk with the taxi driver about where she's going on holiday? (A nice Tradewinds break, perhaps.... )

Nor, either, could any of Lucy's thousands of supporters worldwide - including Twitter pals who claim to have visited her in prison - manage to find the inclination to take half an hour out of their day to turn up at the prison to show their support.

Are we seriously to believe that this hugely visible heroine, who has received acres of press coverage, scores of donations, and even acknowledgement from the President of the United States, left prison completely alone with just an anonymous taxi driver for company? That not only her very vocal public supporters failed to show up, but even her own family and friends, including husband, sisters, parents, and daughter, all couldn't be bothered to be there?

The proffered reason that Ray couldn't collect her, by the way, is that he was too busy watering the plants, after which he appeared off to play golf.

Meanwhile, the photo circulating in the press of the lovely couple today, to mark their joyful reunion, is 14 years old.

Even the press itself has remarked on the decided oddity of Lucy's release, with The Telegraph describing her liberation as attracting "muted fanfare".

The newspaper continues:

"While other inmates released this morning were greeted jubilantly by waiting relatives, Mrs Connolly departed quietly in a Skoda taxi... As she was driven to freedom, she turned her face away from waiting photographers and reporters and chose not to speak."

Strange that loquacious Lucy, once so opinionated she was sharing on average over 100 Tweets a day, has nothing whatsoever to say to her adoring public on such a seminal occasion. Not even a "thanks for all the Moonpig cards and cash" - ?

As I remarked yesterday, on the eve of today's historical event, there was absolutely no news coverage in the lead up to Lucy's "release", no momentum-building from the big Lucy cheerleader Twitter accounts. There was, instead, just coordinated radio silence because - a conspiracy theorist might speculate - drawing any attention to this event before it occurred would run the considerable risk of people actually turning up at the prison to welcome her, and being rather - shall we say - cheesed off when no such her emerged to be welcomed.

Consequently, there was no media coverage until today, when all the papers and prominent social media accounts announced in concert that she had been released and is now at home...

... Followed up almost immediately with the chorus of shrill voices demanding you respect her privacy and leave her alone after her terrible ordeal.

I hope you're clear on that: you were to obsess over her constantly for a year, write reams of social media posts about how outraged you were, sign petitions demanding her early release, give generously to a crowdfunder to save her husband the ordeal of washing up, and even send her Moonpig cards in prison, HOWEVER...

If you dare to expect any kind of communication from this woman whatsoever after her hideous experience of spending a few months in a low-security women's prison that was once compared to a glamping resort, you are a disgusting, depraved dog! A vile vulture! An evil antelope (I'm kind of running out of animals to alliter now...). Let her rebuild her life with your £160,000 in peace! (Not that that's enough, apparently, and her crowdfunder is being pushed again today by the usual suspects.)

Certainly don't pay any attention to those deranged nutjobs online who said she was never in prison in the first place, as if that's the obvious explanation as to why there was no meaningful press coverage for her release and why she can't talk to the press now.

That's nonsense!

She can't talk to the press as a condition of her release!

A condition which bizarrely didn't apply to Tommy Robinson or Alex Belfield who were speaking out publicly virtually the minute they set foot out of jail.

On the subject of Tommy, why don't we have a look at the extensive press coverage surrounding his most recent release from prison? Sporting a splendid big beard to remind you he really had been in prison, you know (where famously all prisoners are chained to radiators all day so they can't shave, just like Terry Waite), our Tommeh immediately posted a video of himself speaking to Twitter, whilst the BBC reported:

"Far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, has been released from prison.

The 42-year-old, jailed for contempt of court in October, left HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes after his 18-month sentence was reduced by the High Court.

Yaxley-Lennon was filmed speaking for about 20 minutes for a video posted to his social media account on X.

With longer hair, a bushy beard and wearing a rosary around his neck, he said he would organise a free-speech festival in London for his supporters later in the year."

Meanwhile, Alex Belfield - another supposed "persecuted political prisoner", also released early on licence, just like Lucy - was back on social media instantly, immediately resurrecting his old operations and cashing in on his greatly amplified public prominence. As one alleged victim of Belfield said, “What I am concerned about when he comes out is that it’s free publicity for him to spout his shite about being an oppressed political prisoner,” which, of course, it is.

So if Belfield has so happily capitalised on his "ordeal", despite the conditions of his licence, then why not a peep out of Lucy? If any of this was real, then I'd wager Belfield's "ordeal" was a lot worse than hers, as he was in with men and for considerably longer.

To be clear, I highly doubt either Robinson or Belfield were ever in prison, it's all just more media theatre to manipulate us, but the point is, if they, as alleged "persecuted political prisoners", can be rolled out for continuing media attention and social media stardom immediately upon their "release", then why can't Lucy?

Who, in fact, is Lucy?

I have been conducting investigations into Mrs. Connolly's past, trying to ascertain absolute and irrefutable proof that this woman exists and the backstory we have for her is true, and have been able to find very little verification that she does and it is.

I have been able to find a birth record for a Lucy born at the right time in the right place and with what appears to be the right family name.

But very little after that.

I can't find a record of her marriage to Ray (I can find a record for his previous marriage).

I can't find birth records for her children (I can find them for Ray's two older boys from his first marriage).

This isn't to suggest these records definitely don't exist. Simply that when searching the same database that easily verified Ray's first marriage and children, I could not find any verification for a subsequent family.

I have also not been able to find any comments on her incarceration, either in the press or on social media, from Lucy's two sisters, her parents, any old friends from school, college or work, or even any neighbours, from an address she is reported to have lived at consistently for 16 years.

This trajectory just isn't... convincing.

If my government wishes to persuade me that a lovely mummy with no criminal convictions can go to prison for a year for a Tweet, and so I should live in a sustained state of terror and conduct myself online accordingly, they're going to have to do better than this. I require better, more scholarly and sophisticated, psyops, that, at the very least, star a person who verifiably exists and can be hauled out on front of cameras to emote on cue and whip up the masses and be called a gammon by the Guardian and so on.

A Twitter fabrication whose existence is validated only by AI images, fake travel companies, and anon accounts who name themselves after obscenities isn't quite good enough.

So, come on establishment, it's time to up your game.

Produce Luce - and a credible, verifiable backstory for her - or come up with the plot twist of all time explaining why you can't.

Explain to us why her husband elected to water the plants in his pyjamas, and then go off to play golf, rather than picking up his beloved, persecuted, celebrity wife from prison.

Explain why there are plenty of pictures of Ray in the press today, but not a single shot on the day of her release captured of Lucy, or of the star-crossed couple joyfully reunited.

We're all waiting. And what you come up with had better be good. So that might mean splashing out on supporting actors slightly more theatrically blessed than dear old Ray, who failed to convince us with his Covid scamming, and is spectacularly failing to convince us again now.

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